Raiding the Lost Ark is something of curiosity. These edits of all the “bonus features” that litter a DVD release of a film put into sequential order by a fan to create something new-ish are a relatively recent trend. Star Wars Begins, Building Empire and Returning to Jedi were the first by Jamie Benning and he just released the Raiders one this month.
I say curiosity because they exist in an area of copyright infringement which seems pretty clear. The entire piece is made of footage where the ownership is pretty clear and which has a fairly undisputed value. This is such an entirely illegal piece of work that it’s somewhat incredible that Vimeo are hosting it (the Star Wars ones were removed from YouTube a while back).
But despite this the fans go on and make them, presumably because they know the hodge-podge of rights ownerships and legal nonsense dictates it can’t be made above board. The only option is to do it, don’t make a profit and seek forgiveness should it draw attention. Waxy talked about this in his post No Copyright Intended.
Meanwhile, despite not being a fanatic about the Indy films I did enjoy this. It was nice to see clips from making-of docs I remember being broadcast at the time and the editing is slick and enjoyable. Worth a couple of hours of your time for sure.
